Jason E. Brooks [00:00:00]:
The first discomfort as a baby is from what? Being hungry? The person that loves you, that you can hear the heartbeat. The very first person to ever cure your first discomfort is with food. Every human being's emotion, first emotion on this planet is tied to food.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:26]:
Welcome to Wisking It All with your host, Angelo Esposito, co founder of WISK.ai, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do. Welcome to another episode of Wisking It All. We're here today with Jason Brooks, a speaker, coach, author, and founder of hospivation. Jason, thank you for being here today.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:00:58]:
Angelo, thank you so much. The pleasure is all mine, and I am ready to talk all things restaurant food.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:05]:
Hey.

Jason E. Brooks [00:01:05]:
And even technology, because that's what wisking AI is all about.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:09]:
I love it. I love it. Cool. We'll get into all that. I also know you're coming out with a new book, so we'll definitely chat about that and then quick plug. Every leader needs followers, so we'll chat a bit about that, but maybe just to get things started. I always like to understand people's history. I know that you have 30 years plus experience in the hospitality space, so maybe just taking a step back and it's probably a good place to start.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:33]:
Can you share how you first got into the restaurant business or what drew you to it in the first place?

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Jason E. Brooks [00:01:39]:
Man, you're making me feel old. Yes. So actually, I snuck into the restaurant business my first job. And what I mean by that, my first job in the restaurant business was washing dishes at the age of 15. Now, my mother didn't know that I actually went and got a job. It was in walking distance from my house. So I actually went to go wash dishes. And three weeks later, there was groceries inside of the kitchen.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:02:09]:
And she said, jason, where'd you get that money from? And I mean, look, mom, I didn't do anything bad. I promise. I got a job. But even prior to getting that job, I would actually cook dinner. I would find ways to make, and I remember my very first dish was taking a beef sausage, ground beef, and then some pasta sauce, adding in some seasonings, and I would cook it, and then my brother's friends would then come over and eat the whole thing, and I would cry like a big old baby, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you ate all my food. But I've been doing this for so long, again. So, first job in Fayetteville, North Carolina, washing dishes. Man, I've been a pantry cook, I've been a grill cook, and then on to saute, to kitchen manager, general manager, bar manager, service manager, a director of operations, franchise business consultant, franchise operations coach.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:03:10]:
I've worked for mom and pops. I've worked for big brands. I've worked for six of the top 100 restaurant brands in the US. It's definitely been a true journey. One of my most vivid memories is working as a sous chef in Fayetteville, North Carolina. And I invested in myself. My first set of real chef knives was very sharp german chef knives, and I was cool as all outdoors. I had a brand new chef coat on.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:03:51]:
I had just been named the sous chef, and this was at the hilltop house. Now, at the hilltop house, they had a fresh herb garden right off the bar. You could open up those double doors, walk out there, fresh rosemary, thyme, basil, chives, you name it, mint, parsley. So we could create our own dishes. Now, I was at my station cutting calamari. They had some gorgeous servers. Now, my wife is more gorgeous than any of those servers, but I was at my station chopping that calamari. I'm looking up thinking I'm cool, and I shouldn't have looked up trying to show off.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:04:32]:
And then two tips, I mean, just shaved it right on off. I'm like, oh, my goodness. Luckily, the handsick was right by my station, ran over, put my fingers in the water. I'm like, chef rowe, I just cut off the two tips of my fingers. He comes over with a ramekin full of sugar. Now, in my mind, I'm like, you crazy? That thing is going to burn. So he's like, no, Jason, put your fingers in the sugar. I'm like, okay.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:05:02]:
So I shove it in there. I'm like, it didn't burn. Now, did you know? Did you know? Now think about sometimes whenever kids would get hurt, they would say, oh, mommy, I got a boo boo. Mommy would then say, oh, you have a boo boo. Here, let me put some sugar on him. Actually, back in the days, chefs used to use sugar in order to stop bleeding. Now, sugar is a natural sucrose, and it helps to clot the blood, plus clean it naturally. So I shove my fingers inside of the sugar, press down firmly, about a minute, two minutes, rinse it back off.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:05:43]:
I keep doing that set for maybe six to eight minutes. After ten minutes, no more blood. I still put the bandaid on my finger glove on, sanitize my station, and don't look up. When they were cutting calamari, that was the lesson learned. Don't look up when they were cutting calamari.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:05]:
Yeah. I can only imagine that it's both fingertips. Hopefully that was the worst that ever happened. Do you have anything worse than that or was that the worst?

Jason E. Brooks [00:06:13]:
I think the average person working in any restaurant fry oil burns. Those are always the worst. But I've done enough now to where I've learned how not to do that. Of course, I don't work with fryers that much more these days, but that one, though, really sticks out because I was being foolish when I shouldn't have been.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:40]:
So, yeah, that's amazing. What a story. I didn't know the sugar thing. That's good to know. So for people listening, sugar apparently helps. So I know you mentioned you work for like at one point for six of the top 100 brands. And I'm sure there's a lot of lessons learned. Only enough time to maybe share a few, but we have a lot of restaurant operators listening and one of the things I like to do is always try to give some value, some tips, some lessons, and so any kind of takeaways or anecdotes you can share? I'm sure there's a ton, but any that come top of mind when you think about working for those top six brands in terms of things that you were able to help or consult them with and maybe that our listeners can take away for their restaurant operations.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:07:21]:
When I look back at the 20 plus brands that I've worked with in my 30 plus years in this industry, that actually was a lot of where this book came from. It came from culminating seeing the Mona Lisa painted 20 different ways. Some of them were some real fine pieces of art, some of them were just some pieces. So in taking from that, from different CEOs, COOs, VP of Ops, CMOs, what are some of the best things that I've learned over that? That's where this book came from. So when you ask that question, what is something that is actionable? The first thing that comes to mind is key number two. And key number two is the owner. Like orientation and the actionable step in that I have to first talk through what we do wrong within our industry. We do orientation wrong.

Jason E. Brooks [00:08:19]:
And what I mean by that, typically whenever you do orientation, you set up your table, you put down your hat, you have apron, maybe some t shirts, some pieces of paper and a pen. They come in, shake their hand. Do you want something to drink? They then come over and then describe. Just starts going and then I'll pause there. Have you ever noticed how the table you do orientation at somehow ends up being your new hires. Break table. Whenever operators really think back, like the table that I typically sit them down at, ends up being their new break table. That's part of the first cycle of the things that we bring them into.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:09:01]:
So we then sit them down, they do their paperwork, and then we take them to the back, we put them on a laptop, they do some computer based training. And then the third part is we then put them on their new position. So we are teaching them that in the first six to eight weeks, the only things that they really care about is three things. Their new brick table, that laptop, and one position. The moment someone says, hey, would you mind sweeping here or getting the parking lot? Oh, that's not my job. It's only my new brick table. I do my training and my one position. Would you mind doing this? Oh, that's Susie's job.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:09:38]:
That's not mine. That's where we get orientation at. Wrong. How we should do. How we should do. One thing we can change right now is this. Set up the same table, have it ready, hat, name tag, apron, papers, bring them in, ask them if they want something to drink. When you bring them over to the table, say, this is where we are going to be doing our orientation at.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:10:01]:
But let's head outside. You head outside, you walk to the very front curb of your building. You then say, this is our restaurant. I want you to look at it from this view because this is the view that every single customer driving by on this highway, whether they're choosing to eat here or not, this is how we are viewed by our customers. This is our parking lot. This is our front curb. We make sure we come all the way out to the front curb and make sure that there's no trash. We also like to look at that competition, this competition, even this gas station, and see how they look versus how we look.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:10:38]:
In order to make sure and know that we stand out better. Then you start walking. These are the sidewalks here. Sometimes they get built up with grease. We actually deck scrub them once per week to make sure we get up all that grease. This is the dumpster pad here. When we take out trash, we make sure that we don't drop anything because if we do, the flies will come out, which is why we also keep the doors closed. Not for possums, not for raccoons, but for flies.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:11:03]:
So we keep these doors closed. This is the backside, but you walk them through and then you walk them into the doors. As you walk into the doors, talk about what the customer sees as they walk in from the host stand or from the front counter to where they order the beverage station. Sit them down at the table. When you sit them down at the table, have them stare at the table for 10 seconds as if they're looking at their freshly ordered meal, and then say, now raise your head up, look across your table and look no higher than 3ft high, because your natural angle of your eye is 3ft high for any customer. Now look down from the floor to 3ft high, from left to right. What do you see? What you're doing is you're opening your eye for your new hire on what the customer views. Not only while you're doing that, seeing what the customer views, but talk about it.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:11:55]:
On a scale of one, three and five, a one is subpar, a three is par, and a five is above par. Now you're connecting that customer view, that customer service, with your guest service scores. Most guest service scores for any restaurant is a scale of one to five. So as you're talking them through, this is a three at the host stand, this is a five at the front counter. Whenever we talk to our customers, this is a one. So that then whenever they can then understand what the customer sees and then put it on a scale of one, three and five. What you're doing with this orientation, as you're walking them through, from the front of the corner, around the restaurant and through the inside walking areas, you're giving them an owner like mindset of the business. You're also picking up on the body language.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:12:48]:
Some of them may say, oh, man, that's too much for me. Well, then I would much rather cut ties on the first day, be even before I put you in the computer, knowing that this is not for you, versus two weeks in, and whenever your trainers. When your trainers get this new hire, then they're like, man, these new hires that you've been bringing in, they've been sharp, they've been on point versus just focusing on one thing. They actually have a big picture view of what we're working on within our restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:21]:
It's interesting, I heard a quote from, I think it was Cody Sanchez and she was quoting a statistic, and it was something along the lines of, in a workplace environment. So I imagine it's somewhat translatable to a restaurant. But in a workplace environment, if you sit next to someone who's super productive, apparently it can increase your productivity and your performance up to 15%. But the caveat is if you sit next to someone who's the opposite, meaning like not productive at all and whatever, it can go down not by 15 but by 30%, which is interesting. So kind of like the bad apple spoils a bunch kind of thing. But it's interesting because it kind of elaborates on the point you're saying where it's like you're better off cutting bad hires before you hire them or early on versus setting them up and training and et cetera, and then having to figure that out. But my question to you is obviously in these days, with labor being an issue or people saying it's tough to find good talent, how do you kind of balance? Obviously, I don't want to say you want to settle for less, but finding good talent, but also the reality of what the market is. So maybe there's a bit of, I guess, supply issue, supply and demand issue.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:31]:
So how do you go about maybe consulting or coaching restaurants to keep their vision high and their standards high? That's the word I was looking for. Keep their standards high. But also just the reality of like, what's the market like right now in terms of hiring?

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Jason E. Brooks [00:14:46]:
No, you are spot on. We can't hire five these days. You can't say, I'm going to log into whatever portal, whether it's indeed or whatever that you may use or even just a piece of paper for the ones that still use paper and say, I'm screening for only fives. That is something that for right now is long gone. You definitely have to screen for threes and make your training better. And making training better is the key to where a lot of the labor issues are right now. And training isn't just something that is allotted for seven days or even 14 days. When you think about how you train, you are training through the interview.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:15:39]:
You are using base questions to get them to understand what it's like to be working in your four walls or with your team. Then you're not only training through that aspect, but then through the onboarding, like I just said, giving them that bigger picture. Then even after they've gotten into their role, the next set of training really is key number three, which is delegating by creating many GMs. That's where you're starting to expand your team, what they own, what their knowledge base is, for them to really want to branch out. Half the time we don't want to delegate or train or share for three reasons. First reason is most people don't want to overbear their team. They feel like over sharing is overbearing for their team. To be honest, most people that want to work with you, they actually want to learn.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:16:38]:
So don't take it as sharing or delegating the right way to create many GMs to then build your team as something bad, they actually want it. Second reason why we don't tend to share or don't want to delegate is because we don't understand it. There's a lot of times that managers don't get the numbers. They don't know how X and Y made Z, and so they're very uncomfortable with then sharing that. The third reason, though, is the very worst reason, within my opinion, and that is that they think that there is power in keeping information and that is unhealthy. That creates a culture that isn't good. But back to the training aspect and the threes. So training is done for as long as you are on board.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:17:28]:
Even when that person that has worked for you for only one year or ten years, when they put in their two week notice, some people say, cut my losses. Now I'm going to focus on my team. You put in your notice. That's it. I'll just wait till your 14 days are up and then I will see you later. But that's actually truly whenever you should include a training of how to offboard them. And it's not just offboarding. In what projects have you been working on? Tell me about this, but in how can I help you get ready for your next role? Getting on board to a new team.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:18:04]:
These are my suggestions. Whenever you do this, you do this. But that training, even through their two weeks, and you helping them to train, even if it is one of your competitors, how they can get on board easier and be more successful. It also does a few things. It's the people that are watching you whenever you don't realize it, are like, man, that's someone I want to work for for the rest of my life. That's someone that I actually want to follow. Leading back to the title of the book, every leader needs followers. That's someone that I really want to follow.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:18:39]:
Now imagine this. They put in their two week notice. They've been with you for five years. You up their training the last two weeks. They get over to the other side of that fence, they see it's not what it was all dialed up to be. What do you think is going to probably happen? They're going to come right on back like, hey, you know what? I messed up.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:00]:
I'm sorry.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:19:02]:
Because they already see that, the culture in that. So we can't really find fives these days. We have to create fives these days, but we have to be very specific at how we find those threes.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:17]:
Turning managers into leaders is obviously a big part of what you do. And I'm curious from your point of view, what's one trait that you believe every leader should have?

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Jason E. Brooks [00:19:27]:
One trait that I think that every leader should have, and this is going to sound like a strange answer, but the ability to coach. I think that whenever we look at those three mindsets and key number five is actually leading with the right mindset, managing versus leading versus coaching, within that key, within that chapter, it breaks down what is managing, what is leading and what is coaching, and why are they different mindsets and why should we recognize them and find some way to be able to use them to our advantage. So I say one of the traits that every leader should have is coaching, is because we tend to skip that part with our team. We're really good at keeping in budgets. Whenever we have our managing mindset on, we can keep in budgets to get a team to a certain place by a certain time, within guardrails, within a certain budget. That is one of the key aspects to managing leading is whenever you are able to take a team that doesn't know what the next path should be or could be, and you're able to paint a picture so vividly that they choose to get on a plane while it's still being built, to get to that destination because you painted that picture so vividly that they will ride on that plane while it's being built. The coaching, though, the coaching aspect is the key to one on ones. It's the key to small group feedback and leadership.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:21:09]:
Sometimes we are thinking so deeply about the industry, about that next step, about the vision that we don't break it down into that mini bite sized piece of the individual. And that coaching aspect, and especially with those within our direct circle, gets missed, gets skipped, gets rescheduled because we're dealing so much with that big picture.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:35]:
I love that. And speaking more of the book, because I went through it what I could before the podcast. And so I did have some thoughts that I'd love for you to expand on because I think it'd be super valuable for our restaurant or listeners. And one concept you talk about is creating self sustained systems, I should say, and you kind of mentioned a bit before, but you discussed the art of delegation and creating the mini GM. So just to kind of push that a bit forward, what's one strategy maybe for developing these kind of self sustaining systems in a restaurant?

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Jason E. Brooks [00:22:14]:
Well, first thing, when it comes to delegation is when you delegate. It's not just passing off things that we don't want to do. That's typically what happens. Like, man, I hate this. This is what I don't want to do. I'm going to have Susie be the queen of line. Not, that's not a good thing. First, when it comes to delegating, we have to do some homework.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:22:39]:
It's good to write down within a week or within a month all of the things that a manager or leader running the day should do. So you start from when you walk in to when you leave. Those things that are very systematic, that needs to get done. You put them all on a list. Now you're going to have admin one, two and three and you will have priority one, two and three. So admin is the admin. One is only the GM, only the district manager, only the regional manager can do that one thing. Admin two is that any leader, any manager, whether in the building or maybe another manager that works for you, they are still capable of doing that thing, of doing that thing.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:23:30]:
Admin three. If you're a general manager, maybe it's a key employee, someone that has influence. That's your three admin levels, your three priority levels. The number one is it must get done. If it doesn't get done, it will directly affect the customer in a negative way. Number two is it must get done. If it doesn't get done, it may not affect the customer right now, but it will become an issue. The third level is it must get done.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:24:04]:
But this can be put off until a different time. If you notice all three are, it still must get done. That means that if it's on your list, yes, it must get done. Now it's then saying, out of all my items, let me figure out what the admin level is, truly and what that priority level is. And then you're now looking at what things you have to do and you have to do first. And then what things can you then pass off if you chose to? From that, you can then put on time frames in a different column. Whether it's ten to 15 minutes, five minutes takes 1 hour, yada, yada, yada. And then on a schedule is saying whether it's weekly, daily, on Wednesdays, on Thursdays.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:24:52]:
You can now choose from your management team with two to three items per person, putting a name with it, last pieces. Whenever you're going to train an individual of when they're going to do it, training them the right way, and then when you pass that off. I think that when it comes to delegation, that's the thing within the industry. The training aspect is what we typically do wrong is that we say, okay, you've watched me twice, it's now yours, I will see you later. And then the first time something messes up, they're like, see, I knew I shouldn't have gave that to you. Give me that back. Thinking that you've always done it perfectly. But the key is one that you have to let the person know that you're going to train them on it.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:25:39]:
And then the reason why. And it has to be trained and delegated with something that is truly connected to their role. If it's a back of house person, back, a house item, front of house person, front of house item, I wouldn't suggest swapping that a front of house person doing a back of house item, unless they've expressed interest in doing that. So that's the basic template there of how we can delegate better.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:06]:
And on that note, it's funny. Two thoughts come to mind. One is Dan Martel. I read his book called Buy back your time, and one of the quotes I love and it could be adapted, but the principles there is 80% done is 100% awesome. And it's just the idea of delegating and it's never going to be exactly like you did it. But as long as it's 80% of the way again, maybe your standards, 90%, whatever. But the point stands, 80% done by someone else is 100% awesome. And that's one.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:34]:
And then the second point that comes to mind is funny. I was actually thinking about today, so I want to share that I think can be added and it's probably already in your framework, but is the definition of done? And the reason I like to emphasize that is what I've realized. And I'll give you like the tech example, but it could be applied to a restaurant very easily. But let's say dev team ships a new feature, right? Developers work, they ship a new feature. Their definition of done is this feature didn't exist, it now exists. We're done. Checkmark. It's very binary.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:05]:
But then there's like the business side, which is more like me, and definition of done, which is like, is this usable? Would a client use it? Is it easy to understand? Can they get value out of it? And so by not setting a clear definition of done, it creates this gap where they're like, why is the business side frustrated? And then the business side is frustrated. But maybe the dev side is like, I don't get it. I did what they wanted. And so it's one thing we started doing, and I think restaurants and any business can benefit from this, but it's just being clear on what's the definition of done. So instead of using vague language like make sure the kitchen is clean, you might have an actual. This is the checklist of how to clean the kitchen. Right? So these things make it so now you're speaking the same language.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:27:47]:
You know what? It's funny. I was listening to a podcast, and this chef goes to this new dishwasher and says, I want you to peel half this bag of carrots. I'll be right back. So he walks off, and then like 3 hours later, one of his sous chefs comes into his office just laughing. Ha. And then he's like, what's so funny? And then he goes, go, look. He walks out there, walks into the cooler, and the dishwasher took every carrot and peeled half the carrot and then put it back inside the bag. So it goes to just what you said of there's times that we think something is done, we say something, we don't give the right instructions, nor do we have the right follow up.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:28:37]:
And you hit a key on the head of that follow up of, yes, just because it is now created, now we have to figure out how can we make it better. It's just like you order an iPhone 15 Pro today. It is the newest, greatest thing. As soon as you unwrap that cellophane, pull that two pieces of paper, take the box out, press the button, the first thing it does is it updates. Now, you think this is the newest, best piece of tech, but yet. So the first thing it does is a software update. Nothing is ever really, truly done. There is always a follow up.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:29:23]:
There is a making things better. There is the feedback. So you are absolutely spot on. Even when it comes to creating many systems, delegating, and then creating many GMs. It's not just, I taught you, hands are washed, I'm done. No, there is now making it better as well.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:41]:
I love that. And I know in your book, obviously, you talk about the ten keys to transform restaurant managers to hospitality leaders. And one of them that caught my eye was key number nine, which basically talks about closing the gap between customer expectations and operator execution. I'd love to hear maybe an example of how aligning this can drive sales and drive satisfaction.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:30:08]:
This is one of my favorite stories. I love to tell or examples. In the restaurant world, we live the two wheel life. Do you know what the two wheel life is okay. The two wheel life is all though. Our car has four tires. We're pulling into the parking lot so damn fast that it may as well be on two wheels. Door is already open.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:30:34]:
Front toe dragging skirt trying to get out because you've gotten the 16th text with the fifth picture about last night's clothes. And then payroll called. They said, oh, we can't do payroll because someone forgot to log out last weekend. And we need you to log into the portal and change their hours. And then your truck company called. They had to change their route again because they're short on drivers. And now your truck is due 30 minutes ago. So skirk, you are on two wheels, pulling in, slamming that door, running in.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:31:07]:
And then whenever you run in, you see that there's a line at the front counter. Okay, let me knock this line down. Let me go back to the kitchen, let me get this clogged down. Okay, now let me do my truck order. Let me log into the portal, get this payroll done. Okay? Now I can do my job. But by that time, by that time it's too late. Your heart is pumping 1000 mph, but you are on fire.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:31:34]:
You're walking through the kitchen like terminator, like just straight up. You are viewing 20ft out, 20ft wide, looking for the next fire. You are out front. You are touching tables, talking to guests, doing laps like NASCAR. You are just on fire. You work a triple double that day. You get home, you give yourself two high fives. Whoa.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:31:59]:
Somehow fall asleep. Okay. You wake up that next morning. Then you hear the ding. It's a customer feedback score. They gave you a two on clean. You just about flipped the nightstand. They lying.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:32:14]:
I was there all day. I worked a triple double. I was feeling up tables. I was talking to guests. I was lapping like NASCAR. I was on fire. No way. It must be Stevie.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:32:26]:
I fired Stevie last week. Now he's trying to put in fake guest comments. I know it's Stevie, but the thing is, your view as an operator and the view of a customer is two different views. Our view as a manager is walking at the average height of 5ft, six inches, looking at things at a very high pace and a very high heart rate. In the kitchen, we use very high wattage bulbs to help clean things better, to help spot things. Even the health inspector walks in with their little light beam making sure that the light is at the right level. And then in the dining room, it's actually darker. It's darker and it's dimmer.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:33:10]:
And what happens with your eyeballs when it's dark and dim. Your iris actually opens wider to see more. Now the customer is the opposite of the operator. They're pulling up and they're looking to see, is the grass overgrown? Is there trash in the parking lot? Does it look like that? It's open because during COVID Now, when they walk up to the door, they're looking through the little slit to make sure it doesn't look locked because they don't want to pull it and pull their arm out the socket because they've done it one too many times. So they pull the door open and like, oh, the dining room is open. Oh, my gosh. Thank you. I'm tired of eating out of a bag on my dashboard.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:33:52]:
Then they walk in. Life is great. They are slowed down. Their iris opens because it's dimmer. They have the seat, and then they're seeing more. And that's where the gap is, because whenever we think about work, we typically think about our very front sidewalk, and then our mind heads in, and then it heads to people, systems, and processes, and typically we are locked in from the kitchen on back. Almost every checklist within a restaurant is from the kitchen on back. Whenever you think about what a customer goes through, they are dialed in at the front curb.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:34:36]:
If most managers even think about it whenever they're driving up to work, they don't remember what the last half mile looks like. They can't even recall. It's just autopilot. Why? Because your brain goes into this warlike state of I'm a gladiator. It is on. I'm about to get it popping, and it's the two wheel life, and you can't even remember the last half mile in until you hit the parking lot. You run inside, and then it's all like the Terminator. That's the gap.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:10]:
Love that. And I know one of the things you speak about in the book when it comes to managers is the idea of regression in managers soft skills. I'd love to maybe touch on it. Right. I don't want to give too much away. The book, and I know there was ten keys, and you go in depth in each one, but at a high level. Can you talk a bit about that? About. What do you mean? About elaborate, I guess on the soft first.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:35:35]:
I will give the whole book on your podcast. Angelo, I don't really. We can talk about the whole thing because that is why I wrote the book. I wrote it so that everyone can have a. Aha. Okay, I see where that makes sense. But the soft skills aspect first, I want to go back to. Do you know why people are so sensitive when it comes down to food being wrong? Can you think about why? Why is it that whenever something is wrong with someone's food that they flip out? Are there any reasons that come to.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:16]:
Mind, depending what the mistake is? One, if it's undercooked, it's okay. I could get sick if it's just wrong. And you're with a group, maybe like, not being able to eat at the same time as everyone. A third one that comes to mind is maybe people that don't go out often, right. It's a bit of a luxury for them to go out. So it sucks if they're spending their allocated budget, if they're not getting the experience. And then I think another one that comes to mind is maybe some people take it personally or more personally than it should. Let's say they feel like it's disrespect when in reality it's more just like, if they had a camera, it's like, oh, shit, the kitchen, they don't care.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:53]:
They don't care about that. It more just feels personal. I don't know. That's what comes to mind for me.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:36:57]:
All of those are true. And I'm going to take you back further. I'm going to take you back so far to before you were even born. And when you were born and you came out, your mother, the doctor, placed you on her chest. The very heartbeat that you listened to, you are now laying on the person that birthed you, and that person knows you are good, loves you, and you love her. Now, the first discomfort as a baby is from what, being hungry? The person that loves you, that you can hear the heartbeat. The very first person to ever cure your first discomfort is with food. Every human being's emotion, first emotion on this planet is tied to food.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:37:55]:
And even these days, whenever we are enjoying food, it's with family, even with the Super bowl, it's with friends. And there's this emotion that is subconsciously tied there because it's the very first one that we had and that love cured that comfort, that very first feeling. So now, whenever, yes, we do have issues whenever we go out, whether it's undercooked or it's a special event or it's just personal, it's still real. It's still there. So that's one of the first things that when it comes to a soft skill up of a manager, that they have to make that connection first. It is real. That discomfort is real. Now, the soft skill, heightened during COVID it heightened during COVID within a few reasons.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:38:49]:
One restaurants were known as this is my family. They have my back. I have their back. This is one big family. I know I have my baggage at home, but when I get to work, they have my back. During COVID we all had to make a lot of sacrifices, and a lot of those sacrifices with the family that we thought and we knew would never cut us, never let us go. We had to make hard decisions then. So some of the skill from the employee level actually regressed because it changed what that culture was for almost centuries.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:39:27]:
All right, so with the manager, the manager had to also step back a few roles. I wouldn't say step down, but they had to multiply what they had to focus on. It was just survival. And the soft skill that we had of working with people and through people reverted back then. And we had to figure out, how can I not work so much, work under so many roles and get things done. So we cut out a lot of the basics of building that family culture. I think that now, today, 2024, people are working back on building that skill. They are working back on making sure.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:40:14]:
How can I make sure that that people culture is there first, and then we can work on everything else similar to Ted Lasso. Love Ted Lasso. That is an amazing series. If you haven't watched Ted Lasso, it's on Apple TV. It's a coach that. He's a world famous, not world famous. He is a very famous football coach, has coached a great football team, but he has some home issues. It's so much issues at home that he wants to take a break.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:40:44]:
And during that break, someone from Europe says, hey, can you come coach my football club? And he's, you know, it's good timing because I got to get away, and this is just too much. So, yes. So he gets there and he's like, oh, snap. So they mean, like, european football. And whenever you look at this, even restaurant managers get the same thing. They can learn how to coach at a burger shack. They know how to manage at fine dining. But when they switch roles, it's kind of like coaching football and then coaching the other football or soccer.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:41:18]:
And how can you apply those things? That's those soft skills. Another thing I like about Ted Lasso is the fact that it is holistic coaching. It's focused on how do I make them a better person? And because they're a better person, they're now a better goalie or they're now a better forward. So that is the soft skill there. Hopefully I didn't ramble on too much there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:41:42]:
Angelo, I love that. And I got to ask you, because obviously I think the book's quite valuable. There's ten key takeaways, even the way you kind of format it to have both the in depth analysis, but then also quick takeaways, so it's actually actionable. Is awesome. I got to ask you this. What inspired you to write this book? Right? That's obviously a question I'd love to know from the author himself.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:42:08]:
Of course. My go to answer is, it is something that I wish I had as a manager, because we don't have time in the restaurant, in the hospitality business, whether it's airlines, whether it's hotels, we don't have a lot of time. We're always locked into a position. I wanted to do ten keys, and of those ten keys, I wanted to cut it into three parts. As you said, one is the main course. Yes. That's a play on words. That is a pun.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:42:45]:
It's the main course. It's the main guts of the key. It's not a memoir. It goes tactile from first word to last word. But even if even in that short key of the main course, you don't have time to read that. I then made the second section of the key, which is called the takeaway. The takeaway is a three to five paragraph of the main course. Let's say you read the main course last month, last year, and you wanted to go back and just hit the highlights that takeaway covers in three to five sentences, or three to five paragraphs.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:43:22]:
What's in there? And then there's the angle. The angle is actually quotes from industry execs that I've had the pleasure of working with or famous quotes that I found online that just makes sense for that key. And the quotes help to give you, or the angle helps to give you a different view of that key.

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Angelo Esposito [00:43:44]:
And so for people who want to get the book or learn more about you or maybe get coached by you, I'd love for you to just plug away. So where can they find the book? Where can they learn more about you? This is a chance to just plug your website, your socials, anything and everything you want.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:44:01]:
Well, Jason ebrooks.com, that is the website. And really, my main focus is just the book right now. And the reason why I say that is the main focus is because I've actually partnered this book with giving Kitchen. Giving Kitchen is a nonprofit group based out of Atlanta, and the giving kitchen helps food service workers in need, especially whenever it came to COVID. Even up to today, they've given almost or just over $8 million back to food service workers in need. Food service workers typically don't have insurance. They don't have help. If they get injured and then their rent falls behind, they have no one to go to.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:44:49]:
But giving kitchen does something special. You can actually help them, or they actually help food service workers in need in order to help them pay bills, get care, even for mental health, which is a huge issue right now. So I've actually partnered with giving kitchen. And in 30 days, in the first month of my book launching, my goal is to give back $30,000 to giving kitchen. And I want to do that by putting 10,000 books into the hands of food service workers. Giving kitchen helps food service workers in need. I help food service workers become hospitality leaders. And so my 1st, 30 days from March 18 through April 18, the goal is to give $30,000 back, even on preorders.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:45:43]:
So my main focus right now is just getting this into as many food service workers hands and leaders and for the managers, in order to help our industry and also give back to those that's given to us so much, we'll definitely plug it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:45:59]:
I mean, we obviously share this podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, all that type of stuff, but we share it on our social channels and we also put it in our newsletter of over 20,000 restaurant professionals. So we'll be able to make sure to share it there. And we could put a direct link to your book for people listening. Once again, the book is called every leader needs followers, ten keys to transform restaurant managers to hospitality leaders by Jason E. Brooks. Jason, with that said, thank you for being on the Wisk It All podcast today. There we go. I think you're coming back in.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:46:46]:
Yeah, the technical difficulties with the camera there, I have to see what happened there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:46:53]:
But, yeah, no worries, no worries. Okay, well, just to wrap up, first of all, Jason, super fascinating episode. I know people are going to love it because there's a lot of good nuggets of wisdom that you shared and actionable steps. And I love that. I love the episodes where we actually are able to give a ton of value to our restaurant listeners. So once again, for people tuning in, we're here with Jason E. Brooks. And again, you could check him out at jasonebrooks.com.

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Angelo Esposito [00:47:20]:
And the book coming out March 18 is called every leader needs followers, ten keys to transform restaurant managers to hospitality leaders. Thanks for joining us on the Wisking It All podcast. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

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Jason E. Brooks [00:47:36]:
I am honored and keep doing what you do. Love the name, and I love everything that you're doing on the technology space and for the industry as a whole. Thank you, sir.

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Angelo Esposito [00:47:47]:
Appreciate that. Feel free to check out WISK.AI for more resources and schedule a demo with one of our product specialists to see if it's a fit for.

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